“There will be Prom concerts this summer but not as we know them and, given there may well be no live audiences and no full orchestras, they are the great Proms gamble,” writes Mark Brown in Thursday’s (5/28) Guardian (U.K.). “The organizers of the world’s biggest classical music festival have revealed details of their 2020 plans, which will consist of six weeks of concerts from the archives. They hope to follow this with a fortnight of live music and ‘a rousing last night’ from the Royal Albert Hall in London. Music festivals around the world have been cancelled because of the coronavirus crisis, but organizers of the Proms insist their show will go on, albeit massively truncated. David Pickard, the season’s director, called it ‘not the Proms as we know them, but the Proms as we need them.’ The two-week live element, from 28 August, is described as an ambition’ rather than a certainty, with musicians performing in the Royal Albert Hall … Decisions on how orchestras and choirs might safely physically distance from each other will be made closer to the time. As will whether there will be a live audience. Instead organizers say they will ‘respond to the latest advice available.’ ”
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